Re: exceptions with null pointers

From:
"Victor Bazarov" <v.Abazarov@comAcast.net>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Tue, 25 Jul 2006 08:29:02 -0400
Message-ID:
<ea52qg$adh$1@news.datemas.de>
Denis Petronenko wrote:

in the following code i have segmentaion fault instead of exception.
Why? What i must to do to catch exceptions in such situation? Used
compiler: gcc version 3.3.6 (Debian 1:3.3.6-13)

int main()
{
 try{
   int* p = NULL;
   *p = 4;
 }
 catch(...){
    cout << "exception" << endl;
 }
 return 0;
}


Dereferencing a null pointer produces *undefined behaviour*. It
may (allowed to) throw an exception, or it may send a nasty e-mail
to your supervisor and then reformat your hard drive. Expecting
something *definite* from a construct that has undefined behaviour
is silly.

You can't do anything certain to catch an exception. Even if you
figure something out about your system/compiler which will lead you
to a solution, it won't work on a different system or compiler, and
therefore cannot be classified as a C++ solution. A simple answer
to this is, "check your pointer for being null before dereferencing".

V
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